Did The Flash Create Tim Burton’s Batman Universe?!

The Flash’s trailer reveals how Barry Allen will get to meet Michael Keaton’s Batman, and it suggests that it was the DC Universe’s Flash who created the “Burtonverse”. More than 30 years after Batman Returns, Michael Keaton will reprise his role as the Dark Knight in The Flash. Given that neither Keaton nor Burton returned for a third Batman movie, The Flash may be the closest thing to an undoubtely canon Batman Returns movie sequel.

Batman Returns did receive sequels already, although their canon status was never settled. A third Batman movie, Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, happened starring Val Kilmer as Batman but with Michael Gough and Pat Hingle reprising their roles as Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, respectively. More recently, the Batman ’89 series from DC Comics continued Keaton’s Batman story from where Batman Returns had left off.

Barry Allen Claims He Created A “World With No Metahumans”

The Flash can be a Batman Returns legacy sequel in many ways, yet it is also retconning the Tim Burton Batman movies. In fact, The Flash’s trailer strongly suggests that it was Barry Allen who created the Burtonverse by trying to prevent Nora Allen from dying. When asked by Keaton’s Batman why he was fighting to save that particular universe, Barry says that it is the universe where his mom lives. In other words, it seems that, by saving Nora Allen, the Flash created a new universe in which Batman has been around since the 1980s, and the Justice League does not exist.

Though this could be simply Barry Allen traveling to a different world, the Flash specifically says that he “created a world with no metahumans.” The Flash’s trailer makes it seem like this world with no metahumans is Michael Keaton’s Batman universe, in which no other superheroes existed at all. Therefore, The Flash seems to be going for a multiverse story a bit more complicated than Barry Allen simply traveling to a world that already exists. Instead, the Tim Burton Batman universe could be the Flashpoint universe Barry Allen creates by saving Nora Allen. In hindsight, it would be as if Flash created the Burtonverse timeline.

How The Flash Retroactively Changes Tim Burton’s Batman Movies

Even if the Flash does not actually create the Tim Burton Batman movie universe and instead just discovers that timeline, The Flash is already retroactively changing Michael Keaton’s Batman films. There was nothing in Batman or Batman Returns to suggest that other superheroes would ever exist in that universe, or that an alien known as Kal-El would one day become Superman. Now, The Flash suggests that Superman did exist on that Earth but died, and that General Zod’s invasion from Man of Steel also happened in that universe. Those are significant changes to Keaton’s Batman story, and they make the Burtonverse far more similar to the DCEU.

Michael Keaton’s Batman facing Michael Shannon’s General Zod means that, eventually, the Burtonverse’s chronology becomes relatively similar to that of the DC Universe that began with Man of Steel. While this is not exactly a retcon, as it does not really changes something that has been previously established, the Burton Batman movies were obviously never meant to incorporate General Zod, a fallen Superman, a Barry Allen who’s much younger than Batman, and a Supergirl. Regardless of retcons or continuity mysteries, it will be interesting to see how all those DC Universe elements work within Michael Keaton’s Batman story in The Flash.